TY - JOUR

T1 - An initial but receding altercentric bias in preverbal infants' memory

AU - Manea, Velisar

AU - Kampis, Dora

AU - Grosse Wiesmann, Charlotte

AU - Revencu, Barbu

AU - Southgate, Victoria

PY - 2023/6/14

Y1 - 2023/6/14

N2 - Young learners would seem to face a daunting challenge in selecting to what they should attend, a problem that may have been exacerbated in human infants by changes in carrying practices during human evolution. A novel theory proposes that human infant cognition has an altercentric bias whereby early in life, infants prioritize encoding events that are the targets of others’ attention. We tested for this bias by asking whether, when the infant and an observing agent have a conflicting perspective on an object's location, the co-witnessed location is better remembered. We found that 8- but not 12-month-olds expected the object to be at the location where the agent had seen it. These findings suggest that in the first year of life, infants may prioritize the encoding of events to which others attend, even though it may sometimes result in memory errors. However, the disappearance of this bias by 12 months suggests that altercentricism is a feature of very early cognition. We propose that it facilitates learning at a unique stage in the life history when motoric immaturity limits infants' interaction with the environment; at this stage, observing others could maximally leverage the information selection process.

AB - Young learners would seem to face a daunting challenge in selecting to what they should attend, a problem that may have been exacerbated in human infants by changes in carrying practices during human evolution. A novel theory proposes that human infant cognition has an altercentric bias whereby early in life, infants prioritize encoding events that are the targets of others’ attention. We tested for this bias by asking whether, when the infant and an observing agent have a conflicting perspective on an object's location, the co-witnessed location is better remembered. We found that 8- but not 12-month-olds expected the object to be at the location where the agent had seen it. These findings suggest that in the first year of life, infants may prioritize the encoding of events to which others attend, even though it may sometimes result in memory errors. However, the disappearance of this bias by 12 months suggests that altercentricism is a feature of very early cognition. We propose that it facilitates learning at a unique stage in the life history when motoric immaturity limits infants' interaction with the environment; at this stage, observing others could maximally leverage the information selection process.

U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2023.0738

DO - 10.1098/rspb.2023.0738

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37282531

VL - 290

JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

SN - 0962-8452

IS - 2000

ER -